Settling in at the new place

I'm never, ever moving again.

I mean it. I'm done with the whole purge/pack/clean/schlep/collapse-and-look-at-the-mess/unpack drama. Five moves in the past ten years, three of those in past barely-more-than-three years, and I've had enough.

Good thing we're finally in a house we love.
Too bad it's a rental.

The silver lining: owner says he's open to selling to us should we ever decide we want to buy it. I'm ready to buy it today, if that would mean I didn't have to move again for a while. Not sure where the buckaroos will magically materialize from to support that little fantasy, but I'm deteremined this one is gonna be MINE some day.

It has to be. I've been affirming for two years now that "the next house we move into, we're going to buy." Clever me: I had in mind some kind of a rent now-buy later plan, as that's all our finances will stretch to a the present moment. And that's what I got.

Thing is, I wasn't actively looking for it. We'd talked early in the year about whether or not to renew our lease at the old place when it expired at the end of May, and had decided that moving was waaaaaaaaaaaay too much of a hassle (and expense) to be worth leaving the very nice, big, comfy house by the water we were already in. So, decision made: we'd stay put.

Then one day my Inner Voice spoke up out of the blue and said, "Go see what's on Craig's List." So I did. And there, in the Hilo rental listings, was a photo of our dream house. Seriously. The house DH and I have been talking about having "someday": north side of town, great deck, ocean view, etc., etc. It was all there.

"Honey," I said, "come look at this house on Craig's list."
"Why are you looking at Craig's List?" he complained. "We decided we aren't going to move this year."
"I know, but come look at these photos."
"Holy Sh*t," he said, looking, "that's our Dream House."

He's as big a believer as I am in listening to your inner voice, so we contacted the owner and after months (literally) of nailing down the details (much waiting on previous tenant to schedule his move-out), it all worked out beautifully and with perfect timing, and we're finally in. [I was gonna insert a photo of the view here, but realized they're all on hubbie's hard drive... oops.]

My estimate (based on way too much prior experience) that it would take a full two months to prep, move, and recover is turning out to be accurate. I haven't blogged, I haven't written, I have done barely more than nothing about the agent hunt, I've hardly even cooked, I have a pile of aging admin/bookkeeping tasks to do that's about a foot high and getting taller... but I have a new home office with a view of Hilo Bay and the ocean that takes my breath away.

There's some time-sensitive paper-pushing to be done (semi-annual General Excise/Use Tax filing, fun things like that), and a ton and a half of mental clutter to clear away, but finally, at last, I feel settled in.

So long as I don't think about the fact that it's July 1 and that means the year is half over (which could lead to panic attacks), I'm good to go.

Invisible Progress

Novelling has been the back burner for most of the past month, what with visiting family and our impending move (and all the stuff I'm supposed to be staying on top of, like doing my part to sustain our self-employed status). Getting to a signed lease for the next house has taken forever and a day, but has finally been achieved, and now I'm checking the calendar and thinking, "okay, not too soon to start packing."

In the meantime I've taken the tweaks and polishes as far as they will go without derailing my sanity, and in between all the other tasks that occupy my days I've pulled together a pretty darned good (I hope) query letter and synopsis and have embarked on agent research. Plan is to finalize the "most desired" list by the end of May and send out the first round of queries in early June, right before we move. I'd do it sooner, but Mercury is retrograde and there aren't any good dates between now and then for initiating important things like a novelling career (or a move to a new house).

Chapter Breaks

Chunking the text -- or, rather, re-chunking -- into optimal chapters is proving to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. I've done one pass, but suspect I may have gone too far: there are now 52 chapters instead of 35. That feels like too many. Started out just aiming to fix a couple of the original 35 that felt too long, not in terms of draggy scenes (I've fixed/trimmed those to the best of my current ability, although there's always the possibility I will find more to cut if I look at it again in, say, a week), but in how many pages are flipped before that refreshing half-page of white space. Perhaps I got a little carried away?

Wish there were some way to get a bird's eye view of the entire thing without completely losing legible text. Don't think there's any kind of computer function or human eye -- or brain -- capable of that.

Haven't made a rock-solid decision yet about the chapters, a reliable sign I'll have another go at it at whatever point I can face the task again. Could be soon, 'cause the only other thing I really need to do is get a frickin' synopsis done. Ugh. Don't know precisely what it is about even thinking about synopsizing that hits the procrastinate button so firmly. It's been on the list for months, and I still haven't squirmed butt into chair to get it done.

Well, I did play around with it a bit yesterday, from my narrator's point of view. Just to see if that would help me get into it. The result (which only got halfway through the story) could be a fun addition to my author webpage, if/when I ever get around to doing something about that, but is not useful for a submission packet.

On the progress front, I have produced a generic query letter ready to be customized for whichever agents end up on my "most desired" list, and a somewhat playful author bio in support of my non-fiction credentials. I think I'm happy with 'em, but they're still fresh. There's a chance I'll cringe when I look at them again after they've aged a few days, and realize they're awful.

There and back again

The conference was great. We got there without sliding off the road, and are now back home again. (Turns out there were some debris-related delays on Saturday afternoon, so points to us for lounging at home rather than getting stuck on the road.)

Highpoints of the event were:

1) Walking into every session room and finding it full of mostly middle-aged (or older) attendees, almost universally gray-haired, glasses-wearing, and more pudgy than not, most with their nose in a book as they waited for things to get rolling. Ahhhh, kindred spirits! I felt right at home.

2) Meeting Donna Andrews and Hallie Ephron and making new friends Sunny Frazier (Fools Rush In) and Cindy Sample (Dying for a Date) and Debra Purdy Kong (Taxed to Death, Fatal Encryption).

3) Meeting everyone else I had the chance to chat with, of both the author and fan variety.

4) Going way, way, way over budget in the bookstore (and that's on top of all the freebies). I won't be wanting for anything to read for a very long time.

5) Dinner with my beloved at Roy's. Every time we eat there we set a new personal record for how much we've spent on dinner for two, and it's always worth it.

6) Upgrading to an ocean-view room.

7) Receiving lots of compliments on my wardrobe. Even nicer than usual because I'd made those things myself.

Toastmaster Lee Goldberg (of Monk fame) was consistently hilarious, and much fuss was made over Guest of Honor Barry Eisler, widely considered hot and handsome, but really it's all about the hair. My husband meant to get a haircut pre-conference, but forgot, which I think put him in BE territory in the sexy-shaggy-locks department. I admit I'm biased.

Being the at-best-half-assed blogger that I am, I didn't take any photos.
Sorry.

Rain delay

I thought I'd be halfway to the Left Coast Crime conference in Waikoloa right now, but 18 hours of heavy rain have made the northern route (2 hour drive) iffy.

It's a spectacular drive in good weather, and can be a hellacious one when it rains like this. The belt highway curves through three huge gulches with practically vertical sides, and when the ground's saturated rocks and debris start coming down.

flickr.com

At 1 pm Civil defense said the road is technically still open (i.e., yes, there are rocks and debris landing in the road but not so much, yet, that they're not letting anyone through). Nevertheless, drivers are cautioned to stay off the road if they have that option.

Being halfway to Waikoloa would be great. Getting stuck halfway to Waikoloa would be a major pain.

Last time we drove in conditions like this it was Waikoloa to Hilo and a white-knuckler most of the way. We were lucky: the road wasn't closed by rock-fall until 30 minutes after we got through. Yeah, downtown Hilo was flooded when we got here, but that happens. At least in town you can detour around it. On many stretches of the the belt road your only choices are to sit there till the road is cleared (which can be an hour, or several hours, or many hours) or turn around and hope the road behind you is still open.

The other option is the southern route, but that's about a 4-hour drive in good conditions and it's raining just as hard (maybe harder) down there. So the hell with it. We'll go tomorrow. Or even Monday.

Of course, as soon as I'd alerted the hotel and our neighbs (bringing in mail, paper) to our change in plans, the rain let up here in Hilo. But I've been keeping my eye on the radar and it's still coming down strong on both the north and south ends of the island. I am truly glad not to be driving through this:

Which is wimpy of me, I guess, 'cause it was a lot worse a couple of hours ago. For Hawaii rain, not so bad.

* * * * *

Update: Rain lull was temporary, although now it's just a steady rain, not a roof-pounder. A flood advisory for East Hawaii (that's Hilo-side) was issued this afternoon, no saying when it will be lifted.

I've had some time on my hands this afternoon, whiled it away Googling Hilo rainfall and comparing real-rime radar images. One bit of trivia I've learned is that average March rainfall for Hilo is 14.35". We've had almost 9" in the last 24 hours, and it's not expected to stop anytime soon. Gosh I love the Internet! I can deal with rain delays, it's the thunderstorms and power outtages that take me offline that are hardest on the psyche.

If you think 9" of rain in 24 hours is a lot, keep in mind that Hilo "has long been recognized as the wettest population center in the US" (found that quote on a tourist info site, gee, they might want to downplay that!). Our average annual rainfall is a measly 129" or so (only about 3.5 times Seattle's 36"), but we had to hit 211" in one year a while back to set a record.

And consider this:

11/02/2000: "According to the National Weather Service, the massive storm set a record in Hilo where 27.83 inches of rain fell at the airport in the 24-hour period ending at 11 a.m. Thursday. The previous record for a 24-hour period was 22.30 inches set in 1979. If Hilo wasn't wet enough, the most rainfall happened over Kapapala Ranch in north Ka'u. Between 2 p.m. Wednesday and 2 p.m. Thursday the recorded rainfall totalled of 36.68 inches. "

Geeze, I hope we don't get that much!

Good news is the west side of the island should be a bit drier tomorrow. As of 7pm, any hopes for safe driving of the northern route tomorrow are out the window, so we may take the long way 'round. Hoping for a morning departure ("isolated showers") before things pick up again in the afternoon ("scattered showers" expected).

Secret confession of the day: I really don't mind missing some of the conference. This shindig goes on for 4-1/2 days, which, in my experience, is a at least one day longer than my conference stamina. Cutting that down to size is a fine idea. I am sorry to miss "Desserts to Die For" this evening though (one of my other blog personas is Cake Junkie: I take desserts seriously, gleefully, and frequently). Especially after spending an extra $30 so hubbie could indulge, too. I guess I owe him a cake. If we don't go until Monday I'll be out another $40 for his ticket to the luau... starting to add up to enough reason to hit the road.

inputting edits...

...gah, what a boring chore. Since my last post, I've done an out loud readthrough of the hard copy and a silent edit of same, and then the fun began. Ugh. Typing in the hard-copy tweaks and scribbles. What a deadly-dull task that is, but it must be done. So much easier to edit on-screen, but a print-out looks and reads differently. A font prints slightly differently than it displays, and minor punctuation glitches (comma instead of period, extra space between words) show up on the paper page that are sometimes difficult or impossible to see on the screen.

Anyway, that's finally done. Took forever and a half because I set it aside for a bit to tackle end-of-year bookkeeping for our various businesses. Fingers crossed incorporating last year ends up saving the significant money predicted by our accountant, 'cause sheesh it's been a lot of extra work. Not so horribly much now that it's all set up and systems are in place, but those only do so much good when I get caught up trying to meet a novel contest deadline and let the bookkeeping slide for a couple of months.

So here it is, March first already. Saturday afternoon we drive over to Waikoloa for the Left Coast Crime conference. Looking forward to that, but got a few things to cross of the "to do" list before then. Including finding somewhere/way to insert one more "Rose" incident in this draft (that will make sense when the book is published and you read it), and crafting some kind of elevator pitch: a two-sentence answer to the question, "What's your book about?" This is the kind of thing that brings me to my knees. I find it harder to write a pithy description than to write the entire book, which is why I've let the entire past month go by without sitting down to tackle it. If/when I get a good (or even barely acceptable) one put together I'll post it here.

In the meantime, I've got a few wardrobe issues to finish up: one and a half of the four (yes, that's 4) skirts I sewed last week still need to be hemmed. And there's one more casual top I might see if I can whip up before next weekend. That's all over at my sewing blog.

Tweaks and Polishes

Took all of December away from the novel, started the New Year by diving into tweaks and polishes. And corrections. Lots and lots of corrections. The problem with making the contest mailing deadline by barely more than minutes is I did not have time for a careful proofread of a printed copy. Now that I've been away from it for awhile, and reading a printout rather than onscreen, I'm appalled at the number of typos/editos lurking in there.

Oh well. The main goal was to get it DONE and out the door to somewhere. Yeah, I could have held onto it, taken my time, made it as close to perfect as it will get, then submitted it to the next contest round a year later. But geeze, I didn't want to wait a year.

And now I'm cleaning up. The messiest bits have turned out to be the ones I edited the most (in a hurry): lots of little glitches resulted that I didn't have a chance to search out and destroy.

So, as of today we're 2/3 of the way through January and I'm only about 1/4 of the way through the tweaks and polishes I'd hoped to have done by the end of the month. But that was with plenty of wiggle room, so no biggie. Yet. We'll see how much progress I can make by, say, Valentine's Day.

In addition to essential cleanup, I am also looking for opportunities to:
~ bolster place/character descriptions (a bit thin in current draft)
~ enhance "mood" and "tone" in a few key places (wanna make it just a bit creepier without getting too woo-woo: a fine line to tread)
~ fine-tune pacing and dialogue, especially in the draggy bits

All that non-structural stuff (the tiny details that aren't all that important one sentence at a time, but adds up to a major difference in the quality of the whole) needs more attention. Just gotta slog through it. Some days it's smooth going, others it's an effort to keep butt in chair.